Healing Wings
by Finruin
Summary: My first fanfic. The story of Mianu Bowen, a young noblewoman from Andor.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter one!!!!!  Disclaimer: I definitely do not own The Wheel of Time; that honor goes to Robert Jordan.  I do claim Mianu, Relc, and their families as my own, so please do not use them without my permission.  Happy Reading!

Mianu Bowen was sitting on her bed, engrossed in a book.  Her body shifted from time to time but other than that, it seemed as if she was visiting another world.  She had sat there for nearly two hours when sounds of a shuffling walk down the hall distracted the tallish redhead from her book.

"My Lady," a voice called from the hall. "Have you packed all your things?"

"Yes, Treina," returned the girl, hastily shutting the book and scurrying across the spacious room to the wardrobe.  She threw it open and began tossing various clothing items onto the adjacent chair.  If she hurried, Treina might not suspect that she had spent the last two hours curled up with a book.  She glanced behind her when she heard a dissatisfied sniff over her shoulder.  There stood Treina, with the most ridiculous scowl on her face.  Mianu began giggling and her laughter must have been catching, because Treina cracked a smile.  

"And this is all you want to bring with you to Caemlyn?" the servant slyly questioned as she lifted the few things Mianu had managed to lay out.  "I think you'll want more than two dresses and a shawl, my Lady.  Though of course, your father did say to pack light."  She mischievously grinned and Mianu sighed. 

"I haven't really been packing, Treina.  I got caught up in a book," Mianu confessed.

"Ah," the tall woman replied.  "One would think that you don't really want to spend a month or two at the Queen's court."  Her eyebrows raised as she studied Mianu's young freckled face.

Mianu's mouth opened wide as she fumbled for the words.  "Yes,…I mean…of course, I want to.  I meant to pack but I started with the wrong thing," she gestured to the tall oak bookshelf against the wall.  It was overflowing with books. "I was picking a few books to bring along and just accidentally started reading one."

"Well, I suppose that I have a few minutes to help you, but only a few.  There are other tasks I must attend to."  The woman gently pushed Mianu aside from the wardrobe and began searching through dresses, muttering to herself occasionally something about silly bookish girls who would never amount to anything.  Mianu contented herself with gathering a few small things she wished to bring with her, just to make Caemlyn seem more like home.  

She picked up a green jade bracelet that her mother had given her last year, before the accident.  Memories flooded into her head, of her mother's sweet and loving face, of the way her father would look at her mother, and of times the family had spent together.  The cozy winter nights when they had shared a hot meal and Mother had read a book aloud before the fire.  Sunny summer days spent outside, on picnics in the woods.  Soena Bowen had loved to give parties for the whole village.  Mianu remembered many happy days at festivals in the village square.  The village children were very friendly and Mianu had joined in their play many times when she was younger.  Things were different now that she was almost a proper young lady.  Just yesterday, when she had visited a shop in the small town, a girl about her age, one called Dedra, had sneered at her coldly.  Of course, after the shopkeeper had scolded the girl, Dedra had lowered her head and apologized.  But Mianu didn't really understand why the girl had sneered in the first place.  Perhaps Father could explain.  She sighed and placed the bracelet carefully aside.

            Only after nearly every item of clothing Mianu owned had been packed in chests and bundles was Treina satisfied.  The servant woman called for men to come upstairs and retrieve the luggage.  Mianu sank into a chair after Treina directed the men to take her things to the wagons.  _Why did one need so many clothes at the Queen's court, she wondered.  She must have spoken aloud because Treina excitedly said, "Oh, my Lady, you will have to get even more clothes made once you arrive in Caemlyn.  One must keep up with the fashions, after all."_

            Mianu groaned.  Of all things to look forward to, more fittings.  She had hated standing still when the village seamstress had draped her with cloth and poked her with pins.  But Treina had been her mother's maid for a long time and Mianu knew that if anyone knew anything about how to be a lady, Treina did.

            Treina laughed softly and gathered Mianu up into her arms.  "Oh, my dear Mianu, whatever will I do while you are gone?"

            "I'm sure you'll find someone else to order around," Mianu assured.

            "What do you mean, order around?  I have never ordered you around, my Lady!" Treina sounded absolutely shocked.  But when Mianu turned to look at the woman, she was smiling fondly from ear to ear.

            "I'll miss you terribly, Treina," Mianu whispered as tears suddenly came to her eyes.  "You've been there for me ever since Mother…"  She tried to make the words come, but they slipped out of her grasp, like water running through her fingers.  Burying her head in Treina's bosom, she began to softly sob.

            Treina guided her over to a chair and picking up an ivory comb, began to run it through her long red hair.  The old habit was soothing.  Mianu gazed at the mirror in front of her and sniffed.  _I'm not much of a grown-up lady, am I, she thought to herself.  __I still bawl like a baby about Mother.  With green eyes closed, she hummed a song to herself, The Lady and the Apple Tree, one that her mother had sung to her often as a child._

_The lady dances round the tree,_

_She picks an apple red for me._

_Her blue eyes sparkle wild and free_

_In the glory of the morning.___


	2. Chapter 2

Ok, here is chapter two.  Hopefully there's a minimum of typos.  My love and thanks go out to Melissa for my very first review!  Anyways, please review, any comments would be wonderfully welcome!

Mianu looked longingly out the window of the carriage, sighing as she took one last glimpse of her home.  The manor house stood tall in the morning sun.  As she looked at her bedroom window, a glint of light sparkled off it, causing her eyes to water.  She blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, the house was gone, out of sight behind a copse of trees.

            Her father was not with her in the carriage.  He had opted for riding alongside on his stallion, Thunderstorm, with the guardsmen.  Mianu watched as he talked and joked easily with his men.  They roared with laughter just then at some story Lord Bowen had told.  No doubt it was about some lightskirted woman he had once known.  Her father had known lots of lightskirts.  But then he met Soena Heret, a dark haired beauty from Saldaea.  Almost immediately, she caught him in her net and in no small voice made it known to every other woman in the world that Lord Innis Bowen belonged to her.  They were married within the week and nine months later, Mianu was born.  

Sometimes, Mianu wished her mother were alive so hard that every bone in her body ached.  But nothing Mianu could do would bring her back.  _Oh Light_, she thought, _why did Mother have to die then_?  Why did her mother visit the glass shop on that particular day?  Why had the roof of the shop collapsed just when Soena Bowen had stood underneath it?  Couldn't it have waited one minute more?  

            The laughter of the guards brought her back to reality.  She glanced outside again and saw that the party was about to cross an old rickety wooden bridge.  The carriage jolted her up and down as it passed over the wide stream.  Mianu swore when she realized what huge bruises she would have at the end of the day.  As she murmured under her breath, she didn't notice a figure ride up beside the window.  A red haired man with a neatly trimmed beard and mounds of freckles dotting his proud face smirked down at her.  Green eyes, virtually duplicates of her own, the origin of hers in fact, chuckled when the man heard what the girl was saying.  

            "Now, now, my dear daughter," he sternly said, "those aren't words a young lady should be using.  Shame on you."

            The look of irritation on Mianu's face changed to one of dismay as she turned to look upon her critic.

            "Father!" she gasped in mild alarm, "I didn't realize you were there!"

            "Apparently not," Lord Bowen commented, sounding fairly amused.

            "Lord Bowen," a boyish voice urgently spoke as a rider pulled up beside the red haired man.  Mianu couldn't see his face, but she thought she recognized one of the younger guards.  Lord Bowen instantly became serious as he leaned in to the other rider and listened intently.  The news must have been of a significant nature, because Lord Bowen briskly nodded to the young man and rode ahead of the carriage, where Mianu assumed some other guardsmen were riding.  Mianu, still looking ahead, her head at an awkward angle out the window, asked the messenger, "What's the matter?  Is something wrong?"

            She heard the young rider cough before he spoke.

            "Nothing for my Lady to worry about.  All will be taken care of," he said somewhat nervously.  She twisted to look at him and he quickly looked down, but she caught him eyeing her before his head bowed.  His face looked vaguely familiar.  

            "Are you a new soldier?" she questioned, "What's your name, if you please?"

            "I am Relc, my Lady," he responded, "and yes, my Lady, I am a new soldier.  I arrived at the manor just last week."

            "Please, Relc, not so many my Lady's," she clumsily laughed, "I really don't deserve that title.  After all, I'm only fifteen.  And you can't be that much older than me."

            She watched his eyes slowly look up at her.  They were brown and appeared to be relieved.  Her mind rolled, wondering what he could possibly be relieved about.  Surely he wouldn't be nervous about meeting _her?_

            He coughed again and replied, "I am 16, my La…I mean…um…"  He stumbled for words, obviously lost on what to call her.

            "Everyone just calls me Mianu," she said reassuringly, "Except Treina, of course.  She _does_ call me my Lady.  Did you meet her?"

            "If you mean the tall one who, well, bosses everyone around including Lord Bowen…" he hesitated.

            "Oh, that's Treina alright!" Mianu giggled.  "No one is too good for her scoldings.  I suppose even the Queen herself would get browbeaten by that woman!"

            She was rewarded for her comment with a smile.  _No, not really a smile, she decided, __more of a boyish grin.  Relc had a sweet boyish grin.  His eyes lit up and golden flecks twinkled like fire within them.  She could almost drink him in, he looked so alive.  _

His coat was deep blue, lined with silver cording.  The other guards wore the same, but somehow, the coat looked different on him.  More distinguished-looking.  On the front was the Bowen House symbol, a silver oak leaf surrounding the red Lion of Andor.  She proudly smiled at that.  House Bowen was a minor house, but it had served Andor almost since the first Queen took the throne.  

Relc sat well on the horse, like he belonged there.  She scanned the bay gelding he was riding and identified it as Jak, a dependable horse with just a touch of spirit.  Mianu had ridden Jak many times herself in the lands around the manor house.  Jak loved to run, and sometimes, Mianu thought that all Jak wanted was to defeat the wind in a high-stakes race.  

"My Lady…I mean, Mm...Mianu,"  Relc's voice released her from fond thoughts of the beloved animal, "I need to return to my post.  Perhaps I will see you again later."

"Yes," she made her voice sound friendly, "I'm sure you will.  We are traveling in the same group."

"Right," he said.  His face turning slightly red, he rode ahead.

The countryside of Andor was lush and green, spring creeping right into summer.  A breeze was blowing over the grassy hills and it cooled the travelers all through the hotter part of the day.  Mianu dozed off and on, the swaying of the carriage finally lulling her into a deep slumber.  She awoke again when the carriage unexpectedly jerked to a stop.


End file.
